A Christmas Gift
by Iona Nineve
Summary: The Doctor receives a visit on Christmas Eve night. Two visitors that bring him hope and one story that rekindles a wish for vengeance.


**Author's note: I am planning a sequel for this but it may not come for a while.**

**Disclaimer: I don't these characters, nor any character that is mentioned. Well except the one who's too young to speak, she's mine.**

A Christmas Gift

Somewhere in the middle of London, England on the stoop of a school very familiar to her sat a young woman with dark hair falling loose down to her waist a single red rosebud braided into it. She held a baby, bundled in a thick blanket, tightly to her chest while snow fell softly around them. The young widow started walking around in search for the only person who she thought would be able to help her. She had all but given up when there, in front of the I. M. Foreman scrap yard, stood what she'd been looking for. The TARDIS still stuck looking like an old police box, somethings are always the same. Much to her relief there was something in the universe that hadn't changed and she hoped never would. Worrying slightly if he would recognize her for she'd changed her normal appearance in the years since he'd left her she started running towards it. She stopped dead in her tracks the moment she saw the interior, which was now a bronze color and the console, so very different from the plain white interior of the TARDIS she had known. She wearily stepped in keeping a cautious eye out for anyone, a man in a trench coat standing at the controls turned towards her his eyes widened at the sight of her.  
"Who are you?", she asked feeling uncomfortable.  
"Susan?" In the seconds since he'd first saw her, his face had paled to the point that he looked like a ghost.  
"Who are you, and what are you doing in this TARDIS?" He didn't reply but stayed staring at her in amazement. "Where's the Doctor?"he remained silent his eyes getting slightly watery.  
"Susan." he said again.  
"Who are you? Why do you know my name?" Her voice quavered uncontrollably with something like fear and prehaps the knowledge of who he was. "Tell me!"  
"I've known your name since the day you chose it to go to school."  
"No, it can't be you, you couldn't have." Tears on the verge of rolling down her face glistened in her eyes, she didn't want to accept the fact that her old grandfather had died, nor did she want to except this man little older than herself as her grandfather. In her mind he would always look like that lovable, daft, old man.  
"Arkytior, it's still me." Few people knew her real name and only one traveled in a TARDIS stuck looking like a police phone box. The single word forced her into acknowledging him as who he was.  
"Grandfather!" Smiling again after a long time, she ran into her beloved grandfather's open arms.  
"Who's this?", said the Doctor noticing the baby now being held in one of her arms.  
"Doctor, meet Alexandra your great-granddaughter."  
"Hi Alexandra." As he played with his great-granddaughter Susan could see something melancholy in his eyes like he was remembering doing the same thing so many times and the many times he wouldn't. Alexandra, though having a marvelous time started to whine with tiredness.  
"Sorry, she's tired. Is there anywhere she can sleep?"  
"Of course, hold on a minute." He went to an alcove and after some searching and loud noises that didn't sound safe he returned carrying an ancient wooden cradle. "I remember that being heavier.", he said placing it down. She knew this cradle, at one point it had been hers as well as most of her family's. After laying Alexandra and straightening the blankets she quietly sang a Gallifreyian lullaby he remembered singing to his own children. Somewhat to her surprise there were two chairs near the console, sitting down she rocked the cradle softly back and forth. Though overjoyed to see Susan there was something about her he had seen and felt, her eyes were tinted pink from tears. "She looks like David." She said nothing not trusting her voice but nodded glumly in agreement. "Susan what happened?" She leaned back continuing her silence and staring at the centre of the TARDIS her lower lip trebling and tears streaming down her cheeks. "Susan, are you okay?"  
"Oh Grandfather, he's dead, David's dead!" she cried into his shoulder, oddly uncomfortable he wrapped his arms around her comfortingly. "We almost had the Daleks beat, but then more came. David led an attack on one of the ships, he was the only one left standing, they took him and tortured him for a week." her voice was strained with the remembering of these events. "At the end of the week they called us into the street, they marched him out in front of us. He looked so defeated covered in his own blood, clothes torn but still had his dignity, and they killed him right there in front of us. They killed him!" her voice finally broke on the last sentence. "I wish every last Dalek would just... just...", he knew what she meant and that there were no words for it. Her voice was hoarse from crying but she continued with her tragic story. "After David's death everyone lost hope that we could win, only Jack and I still believed."  
"How did you get here? "  
"Jack sent me to get you, he gave me this to find you.", she pulled up her sleeve to show a vortex manipulator around her wrist. "We hoped that you'd come and help." For a moment he hesitated, war had taken almost everything from him, but looking at Susan and Alexandra he knew he couldn't let the Daleks take what little was left.  
"Well we'd better go save Earth." He flicked switches and other do-hickieys around the console.  
"Grandfather."  
"Yeah?"  
"It's good to see you."  
He looked up from what he'd been doing and smiled. "It's good to see you too. Allons-y!", he said pulling one last thing. He was going to end this everlasting war once and for all, something he'd thought that he'd done long ago.


End file.
